Today we’d like to introduce you to Melinda Puhó.
Hi Melinda, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story began in a picturesque Transylvanian city nestled among the majestic Carpathian Mountains, pine forests, sparkling lakes, and rivers. Its old Latin name was Rivulus Dominarum, the “River of the Lady.” Baia Mare later became an important mining city, known for its gold and special minerals, as well as an artists’ colony that pioneered plein-air painting and helped shape the 20th-century art scene.
However, this vibrant artistic life and natural beauty were overshadowed by political oppression, poverty, and scarcity under Romania’s 42-year-long communist regime. It was very difficult to fulfill even basic needs, and the mining industry caused extremely heavy pollution, making the air we breathed the unhealthiest in Europe. In my childhood, I struggled with constant health issues and depression, while being the black sheep of the family, precociously mature, like an “old soul” in a child’s body, and belonging to an ethnic minority.
Whenever I felt lonely, not understood, or restricted, I found refuge in nature. I would climb the mountain behind our home, sit beneath the pine trees, watch the ever-changing clouds, imagine that I was flying, and just watch the world from above.
I have been an artist all my life. I began drawing from the first time I held a pencil in my hands and started playing the piano at the age of 5. Although I was classically trained, I was always drawn to improvisation and creating something of my own. I also wrote short stories and illustrated them with my drawings. All forms of art have always meant finding a connection with the mysterious creative force that weaves through the Universe, connecting the Microcosm and the Macrocosm.
At the age of eleven, a few years after the communist era ended and the borders opened up to the West, my parents sent me to Hungary, while they stayed in Romania. My path there was not easy, to say the least. In my teenage years, I frequently travelled between the two countries alone, while facing financial hardships and unstable living circumstances.
After finishing my music education at the Zoltán Kodály Secondary School, majoring in Piano Performance, I studied English Language and Literature, Music Theory, and Vocal Performance at the University of Debrecen and the University of Nyíregyháza, while also exploring visual art and theater. During those years, I met my partner, Attila Borbás. We discovered that we shared a remarkably similar worldview, and since then, we have been building our lives and creative careers together.
In 2010, I took on an opportunity and traveled to the United States, hoping to build a new life and pursue my childhood dreams. Attila joined me 3 months later. After several years of very hard work and hardships in New York, Attila and I visited Los Angeles by train (it took 3 days) and were immediately drawn to the natural beauty of the Pacific Coast and the creative energy of the city. We decided not to return to New York and made California our new base.
In 2016, inspired by Attila’s interest in sculpting, we began creating mystical, one-of-a-kind wearable artworks. I named our business WizArts, combining our interest in fantasy, magick, and art. It all began as an experiment, and within a few months, we got juried into prestigious art shows all over California. In 2018, we were invited as guest artists to the SoCal Renaissance Faire, and a year later became full-time vendors at the SoCal and NorCal Faires. I was honored to win the Masterpiece Awards for two consecutive years. Our works were also featured on various online portals, on social media, and in blogs and articles.
In 2020 and 2021, the pandemic hit us hard, as it hit most artists and performers. All events were cancelled for 18 months, and as immigrants, we received no financial aid. It took almost 3 years to recover.
After the events returned, WizArts was juried into the world-renowned, high-end gallery art show, the Festival of Arts – Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, which was open every day for nearly two months every summer. We were successfully juried into the event three years in a row, while also being full-time vendors at the SoCal and NorCal Renaissance Faires.
By 2024, we had already established a large, returning customer base, and it was our most successful year ever. However, a dark shadow lingered and grew silently behind the light of our success. Having no hope of getting citizenship because of the broken immigration system in the US, despite consulting numerous attorneys and looking for every possible opportunity over the years, we realized that our future there had no clear path. By then, we had not seen our families, elderly parents, and close friends for nearly a decade and a half. We finally decided to leave everything we had created behind and return to Europe, knowing that we might never be able to return. Part of my heart remained there too.
The Universe has since shown us that we left at just the perfect time.
Looking back, I always see how all events of my life, even if they felt unbearably hard to live through, had a purpose: they taught me to become wiser and deepen my knowledge about myself and the world. Also, they eventually opened doors to something more aligned with my visions or saved me from much worse scenarios.
We moved our base to Budapest for now, while our customer and collector base remains in California. Currently, my role in WizArts includes being a designer, sculptor, photographer, videographer, editor, web and graphic designer, social media manager, marketer, and more. At the same time, music remains an equally important part of my creative expression, and I continue to compose and play piano.
From the smallest creatures to the countless stars above, from sacred geometry to the endless variety of colors and textures, I see consciousness and interconnectedness woven throughout the Universe. This inexplicable magick is the essence of everything I create.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As I detailed some of my challenges and struggles in my story above, my road has not been smooth at all. The Universe has guided me along a path on which, since childhood, I have experienced feelings of inferiority, solitude, times of dark hopelessness and fear, feeling lonely and lost in a world where I felt I didn’t belong, while facing financial hardships and uncertainties.
After experiencing mockery because of my ethnicity (being Romanian in Hungary) and for thinking differently, I joined a closed spiritual “cult” at the age of 16 that was the first to provide me with answers to my questions, friends, and a stable place to stay. It took more than two decades to learn that I had been a victim of narcissistic abuse, among other things, and it took years to heal. I learned the hard way how to fight through manipulation and see through people’s masks.
It has also been a struggle to bring the many facets of my inner world to light and give them expressive form. There is so much more within me than can be seen on the surface, like the immense depths of a sea beneath its outer sparkle in the sunlight.
My current challenge is starting anew and expanding WizArts in Europe in a heavily bureaucratic and restrictive environment.
What I have experienced since I’ve been in Hungary is also common among artists: being judged for not having “a real job.” This is a byproduct of conservative thinking that neglects the artists’ inner urge, in spite of extreme hardships, to contribute unique values to the world that would not otherwise be brought into existence without their sacrificial work. Throughout history, artists were often supported by patrons who understood the importance of giving them the time and freedom to create. Today, however, artists are often expected to sustain their multifaceted creative work while simultaneously holding a conventional job for financial stability, which can quickly become overwhelming and leave little time or energy for the very work they are trying to create. This can ultimately lead to burnout.
How grey and lifeless would this world be without the innovative, transformative, and cathartic impact of different forms of art that touch our emotions and our innermost selves? If you are in a position to contribute, support your favorite artist. It may mean more than you imagine.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My creativity finds expression in many different forms.
The wearable artworks Attila and I create are entirely hand-sculpted from polymer clay, gemstones, and crystals, imbued with our magickal vision. We have developed our own style, including my clay appliqué technique using my handmade, non-toxic, eco-friendly glow-in-the-dark polymer clay. I have been experimenting with different luminescent colors and incorporating details that reveal themselves only in darkness. To me, this reflects a deeper symbolism too: the hidden sparks of the soul glow brightest in the darkest moments, like stars in the night sky forming mystical constellations.
Our artworks are also perfectly suited as wall art, and we have sold many for this purpose. We have provided customized, illuminated shadow boxes for collectors who intended to display them on their walls. In some of these boxes, we installed blacklight strips so that the pieces would glow under the light at night and continue glowing for hours after the light was switched off.
I consider art and music different expressions of the same creative spark. Goethe said: “Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music.” An artwork vibrates through color just like music vibrates through sound. Both use rhythm, harmony, and contrast. While music reveals its patterns and harmonies through time, art can be perceived all at once, suspended in a single moment.
My musical inspirations range from classical music to metal and dark electronic music, as well as world music, including Transylvanian, Balkan Romani, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Tibetan musical traditions. In my improvisations, I seek to connect with a very ancient, indescribable essence that runs deep along the path of my ancestors and echoes within my being, while at the same time channeling something higher than the individual self.
For about four years, I also modeled for several recognized Californian fine artists, including the award-winning Echo Baker and Ying Liu, posing in elaborate costumes and wearing WizArts pieces. Attila also joined me in some of these sessions. It was inspiring to become the muse of another artist while bringing my own visions and creations into the process. It also connected naturally with the Renaissance Faire world, where historical-inspired attire and performance meet in a unique, fantasy-imbued way. It felt like another thread connecting back to my Transylvanian homeland, the historic “City of Painters.”
Tribal and Gothic Fusion belly dance has recently opened a new way of expressing myself through movement. In the last couple of years, I have performed at Galas organized by Lunotis Fusion Academy.
What I am most proud of is probably this long, challenging, sometimes hopeless, sometimes cathartic, but above all, incredible path I’ve walked so far. I couldn’t have done this without Attila, who has supported me every step of the way and helped me on my healing journey.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I’ve always struggled with perfectionism. I’ve recently come to see ourselves as works of art in progress, shaped and formed by the immanent, universal creative force around and within us. Perfection is an illusory concept. Paradoxically, just as in nature, it is the imperfections, flaws, and wrong notes that make each of us, each artwork, and each melody perfect in their uniqueness.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wizarts.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wizarts.us/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wizarts.eus/
- Twitter: https://x.com/wizarts_us
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@melindapuho
Image Credits
Photos: Attila Borbás. Painting: Ying Liu
